Below Street Level at T1 Base Camp in Hongdae

Hongdae at street level is familiar: chain cafés, fashion shops, visitors and street performers. It’s easy to forget how much is above or below the line of storefronts. T1 Base Camp Hongdae is on a basement floor. You can walk right past it if you don’t know to look.

That makes the descent an indication of who’s likely to be there. The people I saw had generally come downstairs for a reason. It’s in the middle of Hongdae, and it runs at a pace of its own.

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What Changes at the Bottom of the Stairs

The lighting and the color tell you this is a particular kind of PC café. The space makes you aware of the team behind it before you’ve seen a game on a screen.

The first thing you come to is the T1 merchandise. The playing stations are farther in. I saw people looking at the displays or taking a photograph without sitting down to play. The room is arranged to make that feel like a full visit.

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Why Fans Come From Overseas

I heard English, Chinese and Japanese at least as often as Korean. Hongdae draws a lot of visitors anyway. This was clearly somewhere esports fans had made a point of coming in much the same way a football fan might stop at a club shop on a trip to Europe.

Even if you don’t sit down to play, there’s something to take in about how a Korean esports team fits into people’s lives. Looking around is a reason to be there in itself.

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What the Displays Say About the Team

The displays give different parts of T1’s story their own space. Some are organized by player, others by season or by a period in the team’s history. Faker, the player Lee Sang-hyeok, is the name that stands out.

You can know the name without ever having played League of Legends. Following the trophies, video clips, figures and clothing makes it easier to see how he became a figure fans recognize far beyond the game.

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The PCs at the Back

The playing area opens up beyond the shop. It’s bigger than I expected, and there’s enough room between seats. The chairs, monitors and peripherals feel consistent with a place built to make sitting down here feel like part of the visit.

It cost around ₩3,000 for 50 minutes when I visited, more than I’d expect from an ordinary PC café. The people I saw seemed to have come for a chance to play here in particular.

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What There Is to See Without Playing League

I’ve never played League of Legends. The room still gave me a sense of where this team stands. The displays explain enough through the things people can see.

A fan space can be difficult to enter without already knowing the story. This one felt open enough to serve as a showroom for what esports has become.

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Why It Fits Hongdae

Hongdae changes quickly. Businesses and trends come and go. An esports space with a distinct audience can sit beneath that changing street and tell you something else about the neighborhood.

You could spend an afternoon on the street and never see it. It’s one of those places you only notice once you know where to look.

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What the Basement Holds

The basement holds a team’s history, some of the objects its supporters care about and the PCs people have come to use. You can take in as much of that as you want and be back on the street in a few minutes.

Once you’ve been down, it’s easier to see why someone might come across the city or across the world to find the stairs.